TAL reports on Cersaie 2014
Grout colour tones to be developed to complement evolving wood-look tiles
We attended this year's Cersaie fair which promoted that wood-look tiles are not only still in fashion, but these tiles are also increasing in size. This poses some challenges for manufactures of adhesives and grout because products need to be evaluated and adapted to ensure that the installation of these large format wood-look tiles are safe, correct and that the visual appeal of the tiles are not compromised.
Hexagon-shaped tiles are getting very popular in Europe, so TAL plans to keep an eye on this trend to see if it picks up locally as these tiles will be challenging to install. We hope that our customers will make use of our expertise as well as our technical and on-site support service when fitting these tiles.
Grout suppliers also need to develop their colour coffering to cater to these tile designs as wood-look ink becomes more popular and with that, new features such as textured grains, knots and multiple finishes are surfacing.
TAL is in the process of supplying adhesives, grout and ancillary products for a number of prestigious projects which feature these wood-look tiles and it is clear that grout manufacturers need to focus on grout colours as the tiles vary from warm greys to different tones of brown and they also mimic the wood grain, which means that one tile may have multiple colour tones.
Another design trend which we saw at the fair, confirmed that glitter grout is only used as accents, that grout is very fine and that grout joints are no wider than 3mm. Natural stone tiles were not prominent at the fair, which could explain why we did not see coarse grout much around the exhibition.
Large format tiles may be beautiful to look at, but due to their size, larger tile cutters are required as well as more skilled tradesmen to install these tiles when they are used as cladding. What’s more, these tiles need accurate installation and with just these three variable added up, we can see a rise in labour cost.
Yet another interesting feature of the show was the way in which lights are being used on surfaces. Lights with LED strips are trending as they are being installed for both aesthetic reasons and to add to the safety aspect of stairs.
Although TAL is constantly reviewing and developing products to suit current requirements, we are particularly interested in looking at ways to improve our offering based on the observations made at Cersaie 2014 – particularly with regards to the large format wood-look tiles.
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